Thursday, 29 October 2026

Topics: inflation; interest rates; spending; fuel excise; small business; housing.

E&OE……………………..

Simon Beaumont: Looks like we're staring down the barrel of an interest rate rise on Tuesday given the inflation figures of yesterday sitting around still over 4% when Treasury and the Reserve Bank are looking to bring inflation to 2 to 3%. Tim Wilson is the Shadow Treasurer, the opposition spokesperson on Treasury matters, joins me now. G'day Tim, how are you?

Tim Wilson: Good, thanks for having me.

Simon Beaumont: No worries. It's going up next week, isn't it, by the looks?

Tim Wilson: Well, it looks like that. Yesterday we had inflation data which showed that underlying inflation, the bit the Reserve Bank looks at, continues to be a problem because of government spending, and so that's forcing the hand of the Reserve Bank next Tuesday potentially, and that means Australians are really going to struggle because the cost continues to flow through not just in higher mortgage rates, but the cost of inflation flows through at higher prices at the supermarket where people are paying more and getting less.

Simon Beaumont: Tim, have you got a mortgage? I do.

Tim Wilson: Yep, I do, and I can tell you that it's eating up more and more of my income. I know parliamentarians have a higher income than a lot of Australians, but everybody, it doesn't matter where they are, at the moment is doing tough because it's not just what they're getting on the mortgage, they're going to the supermarket or anywhere else. Bunnings and JB Hi-Fi came out today and said consumers are just not able to absorb higher costs.

Simon Beaumont: Yeah. Tim, what would you do about it? Would you, for example, look at lowering the fuel excise for a period of time where we're stuck with rising fuel prices, diesel in particular, which impacts on freight, grocery prices, and the like? What would you do with fuel excise if you were in the chair?

Tim Wilson: Just to be clear, there's a number of things we'd do. If we want to get inflation pressure down and we want to get interest rates down, we need to stop government spending, or stop the increase in government spending. So we've announced $31.3 billion worth of savings on Monday this week to put downward pressure on inflation, and we have announced a Fuel Price Shield which would halve the excise on fuel while the price of Brent crude is more than $100 USD a barrel, because those costs flow through in higher prices for motorists, on farmers because we’re the biggest user of diesel in the world per capita, and of course it also increases the price of shipping food from the farm to the supermarket.

Simon Beaumont: This is Tim Wilson, the Shadow Treasurer, if you will, at federal level. Tim, how do you reduce government spending? There's flashy spending, like the Papua New Guinea Rugby League team, there's flashy one-off spending, but then there's recurrent spending on Services Australia and our healthcare system and the like. How do you reduce government spending?

Tim Wilson: Well, that's why we went through and itemised five key pillars of reducing government spending: looking at housing bureaucracies that don't build homes, climate bureaucracies that don't cut emissions, welfare for future non-citizens, but also, we've put forward proposals to change tobacco tax. At the moment, organised crime runs the illicit tobacco market in Australia where we're forgoing revenue if people just bought legal tobacco. So, by putting forward a plan to cut tobacco excise by 80%, we'll actually increase government revenue because people will stop paying the crims and start paying the taxman.

Simon Beaumont: It is a hypothetical question when you're not in power, but it's one our listeners always like us to ask of yourself, and Basil Zempilas, the state Libs over here as well. With regards to the interest rate rises of next week, what do you think it means for young people who've purchased houses and might be sitting in negative equity?

Tim Wilson: Yeah, well it means that people are paying more on a house that's worth less and they might have a debt bigger than they own. But I think at the moment a lot of people are just looking across the landscape and saying, "Where's the hope? Where's the relief?" because the government, no matter how many times it's pointed out to them their spending is driving up inflation and interest rates, whatever age bracket you are, the only answer from the government is to turn around and increase spending and say that Australians are the problem, not the government's the problem. If the government expects Australians to pull in their belt, they should do the same, but we're not seeing any sign of that. That's why we've been clear: we're itemising how we'll reduce government spending, how we'll get the budget back on track, how we'll take inflation pressure down, how we'll take interest rates down, because Australians, and particularly those in small business, need hope.

Simon Beaumont: Tim, we had Angus Taylor on the programme on Friday around about 11 o'clock. He came and had a chat to us in the studio, and he talked about freeing up red tape for business. We heard yesterday the head of the ATO, Rob Heferen, say, "Well, yeah, we didn't really think this one through. We didn't talk to business about the credit card payments on taxation." What did you make of Mr Heferen's comments?

Tim Wilson: Well, it was a welcome admission that at least they know they got this wrong. But at the moment they're sending bills out to small businesses where they're cross-matching Single Touch Payroll data with superannuation fund data, and they're basically writing to small businesses and asking them to prove their innocence, that they've paid super on time backdated by five years, and turning around and saying if you haven't, or if we think you're guilty, you could pay fines of up to 200%. The government has set the ATO onto small business like a pack of Rottweilers so that they can get revenue in because the government won't kick its spending addiction. The ATO is going along with it at the moment. I hope they start to push back on the government and say they won't be used like this to target and attack small business.

Simon Beaumont: One more, this is Tim Wilson, folks. Tim is the Shadow Treasurer, if you will, at national level, federal level. Tim, the changes to capital gains, the discount on capital gains tax on property and trusts and the like, do you think that has impacted on the real estate market? We have probably given up all the gains of last year here in Perth, we're back to where we were 12 months ago. Is it an unintended consequence of Dr Chalmers' last budget, or how do you view it now sort of six months in?

Tim Wilson: Well, I view it six months in like I saw it on budget night. Firstly, these weren't put to the Australian people before the last election. But even more than that, this was designed to crash people's wealth and wages, and that's what we're seeing playing out. I'm a Victorian and we've seen the Victorian Labor government where they just added more and more taxes onto property, so nobody's building new homes, people can't sell their homes because there aren't willing buyers, and rents are increasing. Now we're just basically seeing that replicated nationwide under Jim Chalmers' budget. But it's not an accident; it was by design. The problem is it destroys the wealth and wages of Australian households.

Simon Beaumont: Tim, thanks so much for your time today. Appreciate you talking to our listeners here at 6PR and in WA. Thanks Tim.

Tim Wilson: Thanks so much.

[ENDS]